How to Pick the Perfect Stroller for Your Baby

Get expert advice on choosing the right set of wheels for your child.

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Hi. I'm Jessica Hartshorn from American Baby Magazine and I'm going to teach you how to speak Stroller Ease. There's all kinds of jargon on the stroller world and I'm gonna help you make sense of some of the vocabulary. A normal stroller that you're probably thinking of when you think of the word stroller is often called the full-sized stroller. It holds 1 kid. It's pretty big, rolls down the street pretty smoothly and is called a full-sized stroller to distinguish it from an umbrella stroller. An umbrella stroller is smaller, light-weight, easy to pick up. It fold down really small, almost like the size of an umbrella. So, it's easy to carry. It's a little bit more bouncy going down the street, but it's for an older child and when you really just need a stroller that's easy to get around with. The full-sized stroller is also sometimes called a single stroller. A double stroller holds 2 children, either side by side or front to back. Often, a stroller and a car seat are sold together and it's called a travel system. Buying a travel system can save you about a $100 versus what you'd spend buying the stroller and the car seat separately. So, a travel system is definitely a great bargain and the advantage is the car seat and stroller work together. So, when you have a young baby who sleeps a lot in their car seat, you can just take them out of the- the car seat out of your car and snap it right on top of the stroller. And then, later, when they're older, you can leave the car seat in the car and just use the stroller portion. Some people call any 3-wheeled stroller a jogging stroller, but a true jogging stroller has this big air-filled tires which make it easy to roll down the street and that front wheel will lock in place straight so you can go fast. And a true jogging stroller will also have a safety strap in the back so you can keep a hold of the stroller. You'll see plenty of regular strollers, a full-sized stroller that only have 3 wheels and that gives some nice maneuverability. Here's some other terms that apply to any stronger. The canopy is this big shade that goes over the baby. Sometimes, canopies go out all the way for more shade and they should pull back a little bit if you need to check on the baby. You're gonna wanna look at the recline feature of any stroller that you use because your baby's gonna wanna nap in there and you wanna see how easily it goes down the back up. You also wanna check out the basket. That's gonna hold all your stuff when you're out running errands. Some strollers have a snack tray or a grab bar in the front. That makes it really nice for feeding your toddler or attaching toys, but it does affect the fold of the stroller. So, you'll see that some strollers have nothing in the front just so that they can fold up nice and tight. And that's how you speak Stroller Ease.